A: show me medical proof.B: do you need medical proof to believe it?A: yes.B: well the medical field doesn't know everything.A: so you have no proof then?B: I don't need it since millions of other people believed it for thousands of years.A: I see, but for thousands of years, billions of people thought the earth was flat, and if you went to the edge you'd fall into a kind of purgatory.B: {cricket sounds}A: ...which some could argue, they were half-right.

believe what makes you feel safer.

and the most important thing to remember with the death touch is, be careful not to touch yourself on your meridians....it might cause aura blindness.

Ed,print off this clinical explanation and take it to a surgeon familiar with carotid artery surgery... then come back and tell me what's wrong with it...

Peripheral neuropathy is a general term referring to disorders of peripheral nerves. The peripheral nervous system is made up of the nerves that branch out of the spinal cord to all parts of the body. The Vagus nerve is the major nerve next to the spinal cord itself. The term “vagus” is latin for (“wandering”), which the nerve does throughout the body.It is certainly possible to injure a nerve during surgery, as well as from a blunt force impact trauma specifically targeted to the area where compression would cause the same effect or damage. The vagus nerve exits the brainstem through the jugular foramen of the skull and follows the carotid artery down to the esophagus where it courses along the esophagus through the diaphragm. The vast majority of inadvertent surgical injuries to the vagus nerve occur as the result of neck surgery, in particular carotid artery surgery or thyroid surgery.

Typically, injury to the vagus nerve only results in hoarseness if it is not severely damaged, however it also continues from the neck to the stomach, intestines, heart, bladder, and lower intestinal tract. It originates, however, by exiting the brain where it is attached at the medulla oblongata, a part of the brain stem where epileptic seizures occur.

While the vagus nerve is not normally a concern for illness, injury to this particular nerve (also known as the Tenth Crainial Nerve) can have devastating long term effects. The vagus nerve supplies nerve fibers to the throat and larynx, trachea, windpipe, lungs, heart, esophagus, most of the intestinal track, and has significant effects on blood pressure, heart rhythm, and a host of other spasmodic problems in the body. Long term effects of damage can range “all over the map”, causing illness, dissipation, and death.

The most common problem caused from vagus nerve damage, is gastroparesis, when the nerves to the stomach stop functioning properly and food does not move through the digestive tract. The vagus nerve controls the muscles of the stomach and intestines, and when not functioning properly, the movement of food through the system is slowed or stopped, often causing bowel restrictions.

The vagus and sympathetic nerves originate in the brain in the cardiovascular control centre. When a person is resting, the vagus nerve is active and sends “slow down” messages to the heart. When you become active or stressed, the sympathetic nerves send “speed up” messages to the heart by releasing adrenaline, which makes the heart beat faster and work harder. Disruption of the vagus nerve and sympathetic nerves can cause a disruption in the supply of adrenaline causing abnormal heartbeats, known as ventricular fibrillation. Prolonged activity of this type causes stress damage to the heart. The vagus nerve protects the heart from too much adrenaline. Damaged, the heart is subject to an oversupply of adrenaline and ensuing heart attack.

Damage to the vagus nerve can cause pain and problems all over the body. Radiated pain in the sternum, all over the chest, and down the back, bladder control problems, and choking problems from loss of the gag reflex. Current medical practice is to attempt to treat some epileptic problems with VNS Therapy systems, but they are only used on the left side of the vagus nerve below where the superior and inferior cardiac branches separate from the vagus nerve, and only by physicians trained in the surgical techniques of VNS systems and the vagus nerve anatomy. Mistakes in this surgery can cause any of the above listed problems of clinical significance.

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What man is a man that does not make the world a better place?... from "Kingdom of Heaven"

I said used, not believed. But anyway... How can you tell that in 50 years they won`t "discover" that all this is true? It`s true that people Believed Earth was flat. But I can use this too and say: "People believed Earth was flat, and now people believe that there is no chi and TCM is false."...

My "beliefs" about TCM have no influence on my feelings of safety.

Quote:and the most important thing to remember with the death touch is, be careful not to touch yourself on your meridians.

Ed, I'm not sure, but I don't think I've ever used the Dim Mak theory as a "chi strikes" argument. If I did, I was mis-speaking. All of the Dim Mak strikes are to specific points on the body that can cause all kinds of disruptions in the body's electrical systems and control functions... that's why the "long term effect" was included in the paperwork. As I said before, there is a lot of medical knowledge that's available now that wasn't when these tactics were originally developed, so there are treatments for some of them that work just fine if diagnosed correctly.

I'll send you some more information later.

WT

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What man is a man that does not make the world a better place?... from "Kingdom of Heaven"

here is what I'm getting at, the term 'Dim Mak' is a chinese term and is based upon traditional chinese medicine theory (which WT and kosh have eluded to supporting).

this leads one to believe they are basing their Dim Mak skill upon knowledge of the chinese meridian system which places target areas along these pathways.

I'm calling that total bunk ...but whoa wait a sec...they weren't saying their Dim mak was based on the ancient meridian system, they base their Dim Mak upon the modern nerve, artery and physical anatomy strikes.

ok, so you are deciding to use an old foreign word that was so named based entirely on the 'energy' view of how the body worked, instead of just saying 'pressure point striking'.

Ed, lol, what explaining? I did say everything is connected? So by striking a nerve you also affect the chi flow... Often nerves are where the meridians are supposed to be. You could see nerves as physical manifestations of meridians.

Quote:and that point also falls on a meridian?

so there are two separate principles, yes? Dim Mak is the striking on a meridian, believed to be a vulnerable point on a chi pathway.

and then there is pressure point striking which is based on physical human anatomy. is that correct?

For me, all of this falls under dim mak, there are just more levels to it. I think that both principles are based on human anatomy.

Quote:in either of those methods, a particular area it hit hard (or pressed hard) at perhaps an approximate angle? is that also correct?

Well I think yes, but the angle might depend on what effect you want to have.